Cultural characteristics of packaging design

Packaging design is an important part of human cultural activities and embodies the human mind's creative behavior. In the process of the development of China's contemporary packaging design, especially in the context of the multicultural context of the information age, the impact of China's packaging design, grasp and adhere to the culture of packaging design, and excavate and sort out the excellent and rich culture in China's packaging design. Connotation, it is particularly important to combine the essence of traditional cultural thoughts with the elements of contemporary design. For the understanding of the cultural characteristics of packaging design, according to the methods of studying material culture and the characteristics of packaging design in cultural anthropology, we will discuss from the following four aspects.

First, packaging design has a stable basic cultural pattern, and continues to inject new liveliness into social culture, and constantly produces a new look that is synchronised with the times. In other words, it has obvious characteristics of advancing with the times. First, human needs for material life, that is, human beings should constantly improve their own living environment and quality of life. For example, transportation, marketing, preservation, storage, etc. during production and living should be guaranteed by packaging design. This demand encourages people to invent and create, and promote the progress of technology and art. The result will inevitably lead to new packaging design results. Second, human needs for spiritual culture, packaging design as a cultural medium, carrying a national cultural spirit through packaging design images, such as social ideology, aesthetic tendencies, moral ethics, folk customs and so on. Since entering the commodity society, people have sought a popular and vivid way of communication and exchange for their own labor achievements. In terms of its packaging, it has become an important medium for transporting goods, guaranteeing the quality of articles and conveying information. The packaging itself is the fruit of the spiritual civilization of human material civilization, and humans have used this result to create new behavior patterns. Packaging culture aims at pursuing efficiency, function, and aesthetics. It is an integrated form of decoration design and packaging engineering.

Second, the packaging culture. The packaging culture form can be understood from three levels. The first is the utensil layer, which is the sum of the packaging design activities. It is a product form that can be perceived, grasped, has a material entity, and also forms the basis of the entire packaging culture, mainly in marketing. For the purpose of integrating the creative activities of social, economic, artistic, and psychological factors, it reflects the recognition and creativity of packaging design as a combination of creation and aesthetics, as well as the development level of productivity in certain social stages. The second is the institutional level. Packaging design is a kind of socialization activity, and in the long-term design and production process, it has formed policies, regulations, standards, and procedures that are guaranteed and promoted. Social system norms are established in the organization and management. Although they are not directly related to cultural resources, their nature and development level are ultimately determined by the way in which people and cultural resources exchange energy. The third is the spiritual and cultural layer. The spiritual culture is the value concept, thinking mode, and moral sentiment cultivated by human beings in the social practice and consciousness activities for a long time. The packaging culture will specifically reflect people's requirements, desires, emotions, perceptions and judgments in the process of purchase and use. At the level of the above-mentioned three-tiered cultural structure, the artifact layer and the institutional layer are exposed to external material forms and are easily grasped. The spiritual and cultural layers are reflected in the psychological depths of individual individuals and groups and are difficult to grasp. In the study of packaging culture, we must carry out dynamic research from the multi-dimensional structure and interaction of cultural forms, so as to correct our understanding of the point of view, a deeper understanding of the consumer mentality of the packaging design market, and guide our design practice.

Third, the functional value of packaging design. The functional value of packaging design in cultural sense can be viewed from different angles. Here it mainly refers to the relationship between people and things, the relationship between the environment formed by things and things, and the relationship between people and people; it is the requirement of people to adapt to nature and society to the structure. This is embodied in the analysis and analysis of the protection of products and the promotion of these two goals around packaging. First, use. Reasonable use can improve the value of packaging products. Whether it is a large appliance or a small daily necessities, the rationality of the packaging must be taken into consideration, and the physiology and acceptance requirements of human beings in ergonomics should be met, so that consumers can experience Packaging improves lifestyle and quality of life. At the same time, the behavior, experience, and experience experienced by people through their own actions accumulated in the use process will promote the creation of people's ideas and the motives of design motivation. Second, transportation. Transportation, including the displacement activities of packaging products during manufacturing, storage, and sales processes, such as reasonable form size and quantitative assembly, will affect the energy efficiency in the packaging and transportation process. This function requires a certain choice of materials, materials, dimensions, quality, and shape of the packaged product. Third, marketing. Mainly include regional agents, retailers to promote the sales of the purpose of the activities carried out, requiring the packaging to facilitate store and shelf storage, packaging containers can be easily used for turnover.

Fourth, the aesthetic form of packaging design. Mainly refers to the form, color, texture, and shape are the expressions of the internal nature of things under certain conditions, including form and modality. The packaging form shows its own independent value under the premise of function and purpose. The research on packaging forms not only involves dissemination and identification, but also involves people's psychological feelings until awareness, because we see the cultural meaning of the form is the essence of the pattern extracted from the packaging style. As Arnheim stated in his book "Art and Visual Perception," "The visual image is never a mechanical copy of a perceptual material, but a creative grasp of reality. The image it grasps is rich in imagination. The image of sexuality, creativity, and acute beauty. The activities of watching the world have been proved to be the interaction between the nature of external objective things and the nature of the viewer.” Color. Color has a certain social and psychological effect, because people's perception is constant, organized, associative, and active. The psychological effect of color is the induction form that occurs between people and color. As the association of color, the concept of abstraction directly associated with color is the association of relationship and meaning. As people’s ideological methods are deeply influenced by a national culture, different societies, different environments, and different knowledge structures bring about obvious differences between people and between peoples and nations. Taking yellow as an example, the eastern representative is noble and beautiful, and Western Christianity is considered shameful; if red, the eastern symbolizes warmth, auspiciousness, and positiveness, while the West symbolizes sacrifice as a battle. Material. Refers to the raw materials used in packaging design, different eras, cultural backgrounds, and different regions have different choices of packaging materials. Chinese packaging products use more natural materials. Packaging made of bamboo, wood and paper is more intimate than metal and plastic. For example, the forms of palm kernels and gourd tea have a large number of reasonable functional factors. The human touch, local taste and natural taste in traditional packaging culture provide the most abundant source for our design.

Packaging design is an important cultural phenomenon. Its cultural connotation is not only a device of specific cultural symbols. It will embody the designers’ understanding and experience of natural society and human culture. We must further improve the cultural mechanism of the main body of packaging design. , to enhance the packaging design of the cultural carrier information dissemination capabilities. American cultural scientist Clarke pointed out that "culture includes various explicit or implicit patterns of behavior and constitutes outstanding achievements of human groups, including achievements embodied in artificial products." Accurately grasping culture and function in the development of packaging design , history and reality, national culture and foreign culture, design concepts and packaging symbols and other factors in the design of the interactive relationship between the creation of the external interface of the packaging in a direct, artistic image of the people's vision, thus In merchandising activities, guide people’s consumption choices and improve fashion consumer tastes.